Better ship fueling mechanics

This thread seems to be divided 50/50, with some advocating no fuel, some advocating more fuel usage. I think the fuel should be hard to come by EARLY ON, since the first few quests are all about finding fuel for your ship, since it ran out. As you go to harder planets, fuel becomes more commonplace, and should be something mineable, that way you don't get surface scanners, who solely sprint across the surface of a planet for the loot that exists there. Uranium should be the fuel, and on it's own, should be less efficient and not used for crafting. But in order to encourage base building, an enricher could be produced that would allow it to be crafted, and utilised as a much better fuel source. The refiner would take up Large amounts of space. Too much for your ship to hold, that way people wont sit in their ships with all their materials stored in there.

This thread seems to be divided 50/50, with some advocating no fuel, some advocating more fuel usage. I think the fuel should be hard to come by EARLY ON, since the first few quests are all about finding fuel for your ship, since it ran out. As you go to harder planets, fuel becomes more commonplace, and should be something mineable, that way you don't get surface scanners, who solely sprint across the surface of a planet for the loot that exists there. Uranium should be the fuel, and on it's own, should be less efficient and not used for crafting. But in order to encourage base building, an enricher could be produced that would allow it to be crafted, and utilised as a much better fuel source. The refiner would take up Large amounts of space. Too much for your ship to hold, that way people wont sit in their ships with all their materials stored in there.

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Look at my suggestion, this is exactly what I suggested. Though I recommended more complex assembly lines that require thought and problem solving to build.

This thread seems to be divided 50/50, with some advocating no fuel, some advocating more fuel usage. I think the fuel should be hard to come by EARLY ON, since the first few quests are all about finding fuel for your ship, since it ran out. As you go to harder planets, fuel becomes more commonplace, and should be something mineable, that way you don't get surface scanners, who solely sprint across the surface of a planet for the loot that exists there. Uranium should be the fuel, and on it's own, should be less efficient and not used for crafting. But in order to encourage base building, an enricher could be produced that would allow it to be crafted, and utilised as a much better fuel source. The refiner would take up Large amounts of space. Too much for your ship to hold, that way people wont sit in their ships with all their materials stored in there.

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Questions:
1. How is this a disincentive for people to just skip straight to the hot spots to get high level weaponry and tech, and then lol their way through the game?
2. Why should fuel be something miniable, and how does that stop 'surface scanning'? People don't hop planet to planet scanning for wood, it is very easy to find a jungle to chop down, so very little scanning is actually required. The problem is the long and repeditive process of actually chopping these trees, a problem that remains with mining.

Questions:
1. How is this a disincentive for people to just skip straight to the hot spots to get high level weaponry and tech, and then lol their way through the game?
2. Why should fuel be something miniable, and how does that stop 'surface scanning'? People don't hop planet to planet scanning for wood, it is very easy to find a jungle to chop down, so very little scanning is actually required. The problem is the long and repeditive process of actually chopping these trees, a problem that remains with mining.

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No commentary on my idea again! Which is pretty much an alternate implementation of Caveyanson's idea.

Here's how I answered the questions.

1. Make jumping out of system a flat cost in itself, and scale cost with distance exponentially rather than linearly. True, someone could chain jump if they really wanted to, but it would be severely discouraged by the simple tediousness of doing so.
2. My idea includes the suggestion of automation, which would remove the tediousness of mining.

No commentary on my idea again! Which is pretty much an alternate implementation of Caveyanson's idea.
1. Make jumping out of system a flat cost in itself, and scale cost with distance exponentially rather than linearly. True, someone could chain jump if they really wanted to, but it would be severely discouraged by the simple tediousness of doing so.

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And how does that still allow people to benefit from a home base if they are penalized from the costs of moving to and from it?

Also, while Automation can be interesting, in development terms we are talking about working hours. Assuming Starbound is well programmed you could implement the initial idea in a day or so, while automation is a long time of planning and programming. From a practice point of view, you are talking about a late game process that might want to come much later down the pipeline, while I'm looking at a core mechanic.

And how does that still allow people to benefit from a home base if they are penalized from the costs of moving to and from it?

Also, while Automation can be interesting, in development terms we are talking about working hours. Assuming Starbound is well programmed you could implement the initial idea in a day or so, while automation is a long time of planning and programming. From a practice point of view, you are talking about a late game process that might want to come much later down the pipeline, while I'm looking at a core mechanic.

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You benefit from a home base because it allows you to produce more complex fuel. Automation shouldn't be that hard. Have a bunch of items with inputs and outputs, and allow the player to connect pipes from output to input. A pipe connection produces a logical connection within the software, telling it to instead of leaving items in the output slot, drop them into the target item's input slot.

You benefit from a home base because it allows you to produce more complex fuel. Automation shouldn't be that hard. Have a bunch of items with inputs and outputs, and allow the player to connect pipes from output to input. A pipe connection produces a logical connection within the software, telling it to instead of leaving items in the output slot, drop them into the target item's input slot.

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Trust me, a full automation process is a lot harder than an IF statement to figure out if a star system is out of range. The a planets given energy would also be pretty easy to store as an int, so that is simple enough relatively speaking.

Also, if you want automation to be an early game feature then you just undermined one of the more core gameplay features, spelunking. Automation is normally reserved for endgame, and with good reason.

Trust me, a full automation process is a lot harder than an IF statement to figure out if a star system is out of range. The a planets given energy would also be pretty easy to store as an int, so that is simple enough relatively speaking.

Also, if you want automation to be an early game feature then you just undermined one of the more core gameplay features, spelunking. Automation is normally reserved for endgame, and with good reason.

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Automation should be a early mid-game feature, however it should start very basic, such as setting up a simple "shipfuelium" (not actual name ) factory consisting of a slagfurnace to separate the useful stuff from the garbage and a clathrate extractor (note: crystals wouldn't be ice, they'd be something else that doesn't melt above 0 centigrade). Later you may be able to refine said "shipfuelium" into more expensive but better fuels, allowing you to get further and further. Either way, said better fuels don't need to be made by automation, they could be made by a furnace-like process like Cavenyanson suggested. Irregardless, a binary limitation really jars suspension of disbelief.

Automation should be a early mid-game feature, however it should start very basic, such as setting up a simple "shipfuelium" (not actual name ) factory consisting of a slagfurnace to separate the useful stuff from the garbage and a clathrate extractor (note: crystals wouldn't be ice, they'd be something else that doesn't melt above 0 centigrade). Later you may be able to refine said "shipfuelium" into more expensive but better fuels, allowing you to get further and further. Either way, said better fuels don't need to be made by automation, they could be made by a furnace-like process like Cavenyanson suggested. Irregardless, a binary limitation really jars suspension of disbelief.

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So there would still be a grinding process, but instead of straight "grinding for stuff -> fuel" it would be "grinding for stuff -> refine stuff -> fuel", no that doesn't solve any of the problems here, it just forces players to burn resources constantly heading back to their refinement facility. If anything it makes things worse.

Also, suspension of disbelief isn't exactly as hard as some people might think. The bow feels very natural, because it is based on strong game mechanics rather than realism. In a game with robots that eat food because they think they must, I think people will be willing to accept that a planet based device is powering your ship.

Getting fuel honestly isn't hard, grab 'yer duel wielded axes and pillage a jungle planet for a few thousand wood. It's tedious, but why would you expect anything less of gathering resources? I would actually like to see the system expanded upon, rather than having it simplified and cheapened or god forbid removed entirely. There is some importance to having a cost for moving between planets -- if there was no fee, the game would quickly devolve into hopping from one planet to another, swiftly pillaging any easily accessible resources and then ditching it for the next planet. I actually believe there should be a pixel price in moving from one planet to the next as well.

I will agree, however, that the fuel consumption should be based on how far you're moving from your current destination. However, with that factored in, you would need more accessible ways to zoom out on the map from your current location as to actually see what's "nearby".

I think two important aspects of Starbound that we were all expecting would be in depth exploration, and detailed construction. The potential for these both to excel is there, but unfortunately are severely hamstrung by the ships fueling mechanic.

Currently of the various types of fuel, the most often used is unrefined wood. Coal is less abundant and useful for making allows, and higher tier fuels are too uncommon to act as anything more than a supplement. The need for unrefined wood means that players are forced into the process of clear cutting planets for fuel, a process all together grindy and boring.

But worst still, the costs to travel around, especially between galaxies, is somewhat high. This means once a player has reached a higher tier sector, there is a disincentive to ever return to the lower one. Effectively people are discouraged from returning to a home planet, and forced into endlessly drifting to new planets. This is very counter intuitive to ever actually establishing a home base. People either live entirely in their ship, or will sometimes build a small house, often out of dirt, on the surface of a planet with just a bed to sleep in, but rarely will they bother to actually make full use of the assortment of items at their disposal, because the fuel system discourages them from coming back to it.

Finally, the costs to travel are both high, but also flat. It takes the same amount to travel just about any distance, assuming you are just traveling between stars. The result of this is that is actually hampers exploration. Players tend to share a catalog of easy to find, powerful item locations, and then travel between these locations checking them off like chores, rather than actually engaging in exploration. No need to look around with the hopes of finding a cool, new weapon, some guy told you coordinates where you can find a level 30 weapon merchant.

We need a better system than this. As such I propose the following:
Remove the idea of fueling all together. No more 'collect X items to jump planet', it just doesn't work as a mechanic. I understand that conceptually it seems nice, but as far as design goes it isn't a very good idea.
Implement Planetary Gates (Or what ever name the devs think works best, after all what is a name?) that are placed on a planet, and will allow your ship to always travel to that planet for free. I don't think these should be especially cheap, perhaps make an early quest about building one and require killing some boss for an Energy Core, or something like that. These things should be set up on planets you want to use as a base of operation.
Gates will have an amount of power that will let you fly to only nearby stars. There is already a coordinate system, so it would be easy to check where you currently are and if your desired location is within range. You can't just fly around to all the hot spots to collect the best gear quickly, you need to explore what is within range of your Planetary Gate. A Gates power does not deplete with use.
Allow these Gates to be upgraded with Ship Batteries. Each Battery will increase the energy of your Gate to allow you to travel to more distant stars. Make Batteries found in chests and given as a reward for some quests, but not craftable.

This would allow players to develop their core planet, allow for transport without grinding, and encourage exploration of new planets over quickly checking off locations for their gear.

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I think like you,i'm already farming on planet lvl 40 and it's really start to be boring to get wood to back to my low sector planet and if you play with friends you need to get back there more ofen, i think they should let us make some better fuel materials (using fibre or wheat,or somthing less boring to get as ingrédient on this crafted fuel,even uranium ore can make it O_O),or your idea about building a gate that connect you with your home base (only) and even a gate that connect you with your party member home gate only.and be able to build it after the second boss will be a good idea.

So there would still be a grinding process, but instead of straight "grinding for stuff -> fuel" it would be "grinding for stuff -> refine stuff -> fuel", no that doesn't solve any of the problems here, it just forces players to burn resources constantly heading back to their refinement facility. If anything it makes things worse.

Also, suspension of disbelief isn't exactly as hard as some people might think. The bow feels very natural, because it is based on strong game mechanics rather than realism. In a game with robots that eat food because they think they must, I think people will be willing to accept that a planet based device is powering your ship.

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I really hate a "hard" range limit like that. A "soft" limit based on fuel types would be much better.

Getting fuel honestly isn't hard, grab 'yer duel wielded axes and pillage a jungle planet for a few thousand wood. It's tedious, but why would you expect anything less of gathering resources? I would actually like to see the system expanded upon, rather than having it simplified and cheapened or god forbid removed entirely. There is some importance to having a cost for moving between planets -- if there was no fee, the game would quickly devolve into hopping from one planet to another, swiftly pillaging any easily accessible resources and then ditching it for the next planet. I actually believe there should be a pixel price in moving from one planet to the next as well.

I will agree, however, that the fuel consumption should be based on how far you're moving from your current destination. However, with that factored in, you would need more accessible ways to zoom out on the map from your current location as to actually see what's "nearby".

By hard limit, I mean contrived. As in, it's actually a limit. Using fuel types would make for a soft limit which naturally expands as you create new fuel types.

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But you are still stuck with the problem that you spent time grinding for fuel.
Once again, you need to put aside ideology in exchange for pragmatism is game design. Dismissing something on the basis that you just don't like the general idea, even though it is mechanically sound, has a bad history in this industry.

Well, reading through much of the comments on here got my gears turning and thought up my own spin on the whole system. Having there be different grades of fuels (Wood and coal being grade/tier 1 fuel) able to take you only so far from the planet you are on and higher grade fuels expanding your reach. Then along with the story quests you start salvaging parts from the ships of the bosses you defeat or wrecked space ships and find something that lets you expand your fuel tank and a method for actually creating a higher grade fuel in some manner. Not all fuels requiring huge farming and mining operations to produce.

Still I find it laughable in realistic views that traveling from a planet to a moon costs the equivalent of 1/2 a piece of coal and traveling anywhere in the sector that you're in just 100 pieces of coal. That's hardly anything for a coal powered train let alone an intergalactic space ship.

But back to improving the traveling and fuel part of the game. I also had a bit similar of an idea along side this one. That you could still craft new better fuels that once learned to make will make it faster and easier to fuel back up. But when you start out your story and reach your first planet you realize that your galactic radar map is malfunctioning and can only show you what is within such distance from the solar system you are in or even the planet (and moons). And you must luckily come across abandoned/crash landed ships and reverse engineer theirs to upgrade yours and unlock longer reach from your current solar system.

Like I said, it jars suspension of disbelief. Fuel is already in the game. It's already part of the picture our brains paint of the game's universe. A change of fuel types wouldn't impact your suspension of disbelief. Creation of a brand-new, artificial, limit for no reason other than "we don't like the way you're playing our game" would definitely impact said suspension HUGELY!!! You could avoid doing so by adding star drive upgrades, which would add an in game reason, but it still has the problem of artificially limiting someone's play-style. Mining is already part of the game, like it or not. You need to mine to get armor. You need to mine to get weapons. Adding fuel to that list isn't too big a problem.